[ SECRET POST #2169 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2169 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


__________________________________________________



02.


__________________________________________________



03.


__________________________________________________



04.


__________________________________________________



05.


__________________________________________________



06.


__________________________________________________



07.


__________________________________________________



08.


__________________________________________________



09.


__________________________________________________



10.


__________________________________________________



11.


__________________________________________________



12.


__________________________________________________



13.


__________________________________________________



14.


__________________________________________________



15.


__________________________________________________



16.


__________________________________________________



17.


__________________________________________________



18.


__________________________________________________














Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 078 secrets from Secret Submission Post #310.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[insanenoodlyguy]

Writing a woman is not hard.

Writing the game to accomodate both versions can get a bit harder though. Depends on the game genre and scope.

It's not necessarily as easy as changing pronouns with some games. And if it's done bad, the people who wanted it will hate it more then anything.

[saku]

i think folks might be forgetting how much of a time crunch designers are on throughout most of the designing process. in bioshock 2, the original intent was to have one little sister have blonde hair. there were audio diaries alluding to it and everything. they ran out of time to do that one tiny little thing, and so she had brown hair like the others.

like you said, the type of game - plot and all - really does matter when making multiple versions of a playable character, and it's not always possible to do it well for every game on the market in a timely fashion. and like you also said, people do call offending games out for being sloppy all the time.

[unicornherds]

I don't know, a lot of the time I see people calling games out for sloppy female protagonists it's because they did change the gameplay and story instead of just switching pronouns.

[saku]

i think that depends entirely on the game, it's kind of a case-by-case thing. i think we can all agree that the industry is shit at doing it right though.

[(Anonymous)]

yet the first character, the default dummy we end up being stuck with because they don't have time to make a second gender model, is always male. Why? because male is always the default. joy oh joy.

[saku]

i don't know why this surprises you, really

[(Anonymous)]

"Writing the game to accomodate both versions can get a bit harder though."

No it's not. There's actual examples of this exact thing which prove this statement wrong. Mass Effect is the same game, same story no matter which character you choose, the only exception being possible love interests.

They would actually have to TRY to fuck it up. Like, say, the Tomb Raider rape backstory thing. That is a perfect example of what you're talking about, because it's insensitive, bad storytelling, and incredibly sexist. If game creators stop viewing female characters as strange, weak and foreign creatures and start treating them like actual characters, there would be no problems.

[(Anonymous)]

No it's not. There's actual examples of this exact thing which prove this statement wrong. Mass Effect is the same game, same story no matter which character you choose, the only exception being possible love interests.

Exactly. Mass Effect. Dragon Age.

It can be done and it can be wildly popular.

[(Anonymous)]

I've played ManShep and FemShep, and FemShep is SO MUCH COOLER.

[insanenoodlyguy]

And do you know how much extra work was put into mass effect to make that work? It was well done, but it wasn't simple. It was lots and lots of code.

[(Anonymous)]

But why is it considered "extra work" to put in female characters? Instead of having this male-first mentality, shouldn't game creators just plan on making games for both?

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not taking about the coding, I'm talking about the act of simply making female characters.

And in that case, maybe people can just *gasp* not make every single main character a man every single time

[(Anonymous)]

The industry is wrong. It's a well-known fact that women make up almost half of gamers by now. They are simply refusing to tap a market that is obviously there and obviously wanting more.

Which means they are the guilty of both being sexist and being terrible at business.

[ladyrogue]

But again, they assume women are going to play the Wii or the Sims more. Hence why you see so many simulation games/fashion/ponies. They figure that women will be more attracted to those types of games. I'm not saying they're right, I'm just saying that's what they think. Whereas the majority of players on games such as Halo, Call of Duty, Hitman, etc are going to be male. Again, I'm sure there are women who play these games *points to self*, but the industry will assume the majority will be male, so why bother putting in more work when you've already made your majority happy?

So to answer the question of why the default is male in these types of games... Because males are considered to be more violent, aggressive, ruthless, etc. thus it makes sense (in their minds) to use a male character for the more violent games. (For example, if the game had been Goddess of War, would they have made it just as violent?)